An agreement was reached in March for the Kurdish SDF to integrate into the Syrian Army, and while we’ve seemed close to the deal actually going through multiple times throughout the year, persistent clashes and tensions have dogged this plan, and as the first full year of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) rule comes to an end, the sides are once again reportedly at an impasse.
At present, the Syrian demands are that the SDF gives its forces over to direct defense ministry control, and hands over border crossings in Syria’s northeast to the central government. They also want all the oil and gas assets in Kurdish territory handed over to the central government’s ministries.
The SDF, by contrast, is calling for the HTS to guarantee the admittance of 35 officers into the defense ministry’s departments and permanent representation in the General Staff. While they are willing to hand over the three divisions to direct defense ministry control, they also want to maintain three brigades of independent units, including a border brigade and an anti-terror brigade.
SDF troops patrol Deir Hafar | Image from SOHR
Since the SDF has been fighting ISIS off and on for years now, it’s understandable that they’d want to ensure they retain some ability to defend themselves in the event the central government isn’t able. At the same time, the HTS vision of absolute monopoly on force of arms makes this demand a non-starter. So once again, there is an impasse.
In Raqqa, locals are reporting growing work by heavy construction vehicles creating underground tunnels in the residential areas, suggesting that the Kurdish-held city envisions itself coming under attack, whether by the HTS directly or by Turkey, which has long opposed any Kurdish autonomy.
The Kurdish National Council issued a statement saying they view the current situation as a “crossroads” and that they once again want to see Syria as a democratic system with a measure of decentralization that would guarantee minority rights. That’s starkly in contrast with the HTS centralization push.
The most recent fighting was reported around Tishrin Dam in Aleppo Governorate, where the SDF claimed that government forces shelled residential areas nearby. They reported three SDF fighters were wounded in this incident.
Key SDF leader Mazloum Abdi was scheduled to go to Damascus for talks this week, but those have reportedly been postponed. While technical reasons were cited, it is likely that tensions over the integration played a role.
